[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 135 (Friday, September 18, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H6170-H6174]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            CONSTITUTION DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Poliquin). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, we have talked about a lot this week. There 
has been a lot going on in Congress. We haven't gotten to spend much 
time recognizing that yesterday was Constitution Day, September 17, 
celebrating that summer in 1787 where they worked all summer long and 
all the way up until September 17 to craft this document that I would 
argue has preserved our freedoms for over 200 years. I want to talk 
about what I would argue is a national threat, a bipartisan threat to 
those principles embodied in that Constitution.
  By way of background, Mr. Speaker, I want to put up a quote from 
James Madison. You can't see it from where you are, but James Madison 
says this:

       The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and 
     judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, 
     and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may 
     justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

  Mr. Speaker, we talk a lot about tyranny in different governments 
around the globe. What James Madison says is we are not talking about 
one evil dictator.
  Mr. Kinzinger was down here just a moment ago talking about how one 
evil dictator can change the entire makeup of regional peace and 
stability. James Madison portrays it even larger. He says it does not 
matter whether it is one person or a few people or even many people. It 
does not matter whether it is hereditary or self-appointed or elective. 
When you have all of the power located in any one place, tyranny is the 
result.
  We learn at an early age in our schools, Mr. Speaker, about 
separation of powers. We learn about checks and balances. We learn 
about the legislative branch on Capitol Hill, the Supreme Court right 
behind us, the executive branch headquartered at 1600 Pennsylvania 
Avenue, and the natural tension that is created within those branches.
  John Adams said, Mr. Speaker:

       A question arises whether all the powers of government, 
     legislative, executive, and judicial, shall be left in this 
     body.

  They were struggling at that time trying to create our form of 
government. He says:

       I think a people cannot long be free, nor ever happy, whose 
     government is in one Assembly.

  Constitution Day yesterday, Mr. Speaker, represents the culmination 
of all of the challenges, all of the thoughts, all of the prayers to 
spawn a new nation. But what they grappled with for the entirety of 
that summer was how to create a system that would prevent a return to 
tyranny.

       The accumulation of all powers in the same hands, whether 
     one, few, or many, whether hereditary, whether self-
     appointed, whether elective, may justly be pronounced the 
     very definition of tyranny.

  James Madison.
  I talk about that, Mr. Speaker, here, the day after Constitution Day, 
because this is something that I have seen come up over and over again 
in my lifetime in a bipartisan and a bicameral way.
  So often we find ourselves talking about President Obama, Mr. 
Speaker, and I will certainly do that later on in this hour, but I want 
to begin by talking about President Bush. The headline I have here 
coming from The Washington Post, Mr. Speaker, says: ``Bush's Tactic of 
Refusing Laws is Probed.'' The Washington Post says this:

       The President is indicating that he will not either enforce 
     part or the entirety of congressional bills, according to the 
     ABA president, a Massachusetts attorney. ``We will be close 
     to a constitutional crisis,'' the ABA president says, ``when 
     the President of the United States' use of signing statements 
     is left unchecked.''

  This is where you are signing a bill into law. We have all seen the 
``I am just a bill sitting here on Capitol Hill.'' We all know how laws 
are made. Congress deliberates, crafts, passes, sends to the President 
for his signature. Well, a signing statement is when you sign a bill 
into law and say: Oh, but by the way, this particular part of the law I 
don't recognize as being valid. Well, the veto pen gives you an 
opportunity to reject a law if you don't like it. A signing statement 
says: I like this part, and I am going to enforce it, but I don't like 
this part, and I am not.
  Another headline, ``Bush Challenges Hundreds of Laws'':

       President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey 
     more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting 
     that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by 
     Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the 
     Constitution.

  Now, Mr. Speaker, you and I were not in Congress during the Bush 
administration. You and I did not have an oversight role of the Bush 
administration, but I would tell you that Republicans and Democrats are 
each complicit in their own way in allowing the people's power, not the 
House's power, but the people's power to slowly drift down Pennsylvania 
Avenue, away from the people's representatives on Capitol Hill and into 
the hands of a Chief Executive.
  This was going on during the Bush administration. This was a part of 
the national conversation during the Bush administration, but most 
Republicans remained silent. This is not a Republican or a Democratic 
issue. This is an American issue. This is a constitutional issue. If we 
are to prevent tyranny, we have to stand and be counted.
  Mr. Speaker, Barack Obama was in Congress during the Bush 
administration. While you and I were not, Barack Obama was, and he says 
this in March of 2008:

       I take the Constitution very seriously. The biggest 
     problems that we are facing right now have to do with the 
     President--

then President Bush--

     trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch 
     and not go through Congress at all. And that is what I intend 
     to reverse when I'm President of the United States.

  Mr. Speaker, that is almost laughable, as we sit here in September of 
2015. The words of then-Senator, now-President Barack Obama:

       I take the Constitution very seriously. The biggest 
     problems that we are facing right now have to do with the 
     President trying to bring more and more power into the 
     executive branch and not go through Congress at all, and 
     that's what I intend to reverse when I'm President of the 
     United States.

  May of that same year, Mr. Speaker, then Senator Obama, now President 
Obama says this:

       We have got a government designed by the Founders so that 
     there would be checks and balances. You don't want a 
     President who is too powerful or a Congress who is too 
     powerful or a court that is too powerful. Everybody's got 
     their own role. Congress' job is to pass legislation. The 
     President can veto it or he can sign it. I believe in the 
     Constitution, and I will obey the Constitution of the United 
     States. We are not going to use signing statements as a way 
     of doing an end run around Congress.

  When President Obama was Senator Obama, he saw separation of powers 
clearly; he saw the checks and balances clearly. On the campaign trail, 
while he was seeking to be the next President of the United States, he 
recognized the transgressions of the Bush administration, and he said:

       Not on my watch, I will not follow in that path.


[[Page H6171]]


  That was an election year, 2008. It seems laughable as we sit here in 
September of 2015.
  Mr. Speaker, I take you to a press conference by President Obama in 
August of 2013. The Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, was in all the 
headlines. The President says this:

       In a normal political environment, it would have been 
     easier for me to simply call up the Speaker, then Speaker 
     Boehner, and say, you know what, this is a tweak that doesn't 
     go to the essence of the law--it has to do with, for example, 
     are we able to simplify the attestation of employers to 
     whether they're already providing health insurance or not.

  Mr. Speaker, if you don't recall this press conference, the 
President, having just begun to implement the Affordable Care Act--
remember, it was jammed through Congress, completely partisan vote, 
wasn't quite ready for prime time, but they lost the Senate election; 
they had to move through the unfinished product. As that bill is being 
implemented, obviously there are problems because it was not a 
conference bill. It was not a bill that had worked its way through the 
committee process. The President says: Well, ordinarily, when you are 
trying to fix these kind of problems, I would have just called up the 
Speaker. I would have said, Mr. Speaker, the law didn't work out quite 
the way we wanted it to. We need a few tweaks to make the law work.
  The President continues. He says: It looks like there may be some 
better ways to do this, better ways than the way the law was drafted. 
Let's make a technical change to the law, the President says, what he 
would have asked for, had he called Speaker Boehner. The President 
says: That would be the normal thing that I would prefer to do, but we 
are not in a normal atmosphere around here when it comes to ObamaCare. 
We did have the executive authority to do so--by doing so, he means 
waiving parts of the Affordable Care Act--and we did so.
  As candidate Obama, he saw clearly that the Bush administration was 
overstepping its bounds as the executive, failing to either veto a law 
or pass a law, failing to recognize the separation of powers, Mr. 
Speaker. The President recognized that when he was a United States 
Senator. He recognized that while he was on the campaign trail, but 
when he was sworn into the office of President of the United States of 
America, upholder and defender of the United States Constitution, he 
says:

       What I would have liked to have done was follow the law. 
     What I would have liked to have done was to contact the 
     Speaker and try to change the law, but we are not in normal 
     circumstances around here. So I just did it myself. I had the 
     authority, and I did it myself.

  Mr. Speaker, that was one press conference in August of 2013, but the 
list goes on. I am not having this conversation today to pick on the 
President of the United States, not this President of the United States 
in particular, but something happens when you have all of the power and 
the responsibility that is vested in the White House--it happened to 
President Bush; it has happened to President Obama--where you say: I 
have all of this responsibility, and I am just going to do it. As long 
as the ends are correct, the means don't matter.

                              {time}  1330

  That is not okay. It is not okay for any of us, Republican or 
Democrat. You may like the way that goes today. As a Republican, we may 
have liked it when President Bush was doing it. As a Democrat, you 
might like it when President Obama is doing it.
  But it is not the right way to run this country, and it is 
dangerous--dangerous--to the folks who actually hold the power, and 
that is each individual citizen of the United States.
  I will use the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Speaker, as one minor 
example. The individual mandate delay said every American must go out 
and buy health insurance. Well, the plans weren't available.
  Again, the law wasn't ready for prime time. We all knew it wasn't 
going to work. The President knew it wasn't going to work.
  Congress introduced not one bill, not two bills, not three bills, but 
four different bills to fix the individual mandate. These were not 
Republican bills. These were bipartisan bills.
  But the President, in the press conference that we talked about from 
August 2013, decided by himself to act unilaterally to change the law. 
It wasn't that Congress wouldn't do it. Congress wanted to do it.
  The President said:

       No. I don't want to work with Congress to do it. I am going 
     to do it on my own.

  He didn't just do it in October of 2013. He waived it again in March 
2014 and again in February 2015, all on the one very specific section 
of the individual mandate.
  We could have worked together. The Constitution requires that we work 
together. The Constitution requires that the law either be followed or 
be changed.
  Changes of the law have to come through Congress, have to be signed 
by the President. In the case of Barack Obama, neither happened.
  The employer mandate delay, Mr. Speaker, again, it is not that the 
House didn't want to deal with this issue. As you recall, the employers 
were not ready for this.
  Again, this was not a fully baked idea. The White House knew this 
wasn't going to work. The Congress knew this wasn't going to work.
  And so the House, of which I was a Member at that time, didn't just 
come up with a bill. We passed a bill. There wasn't just one bill.
  There were three bills--House bills and Senate bills--to solve this 
problem that the White House knew existed, that Congress knew existed, 
and that the American people knew existed.
  But the President didn't work with Congress. He went off and acted 
alone in July of 2013, waiving it once, and in February of 2014, 
waiving it again. Where is the outcry? Not the outcry over the policy, 
but the outcry over the process.
  There are things that happen in this country, Mr. Speaker, that you 
and I may agree with the ends. But if the means are not the correct 
means, we have to stand up and say no.
  Any American who works in manufacturing knows that, if you have a 
flawed process, you are going to produce a flawed product.
  Process matters. It matters most when we are talking about protecting 
individual liberty. But Americans have become so frustrated, Mr. 
Speaker.
  Americans have put that label on Washington, D.C., as either being 
inept or ineffective, intransigent, not able to work together, not able 
to move things forward. They have come to a place where they say the 
ends justify the means. It is a dangerous place to be.
  Mr. Speaker, going back to the Affordable Care Act, ``The renewal of 
noncompliant plans'' is the headline I have here. I am sure you 
remember that from May, Mr. Speaker.
  These were the plans that the President said are so bad, they are so 
damaging to American families, we have got to outlaw them. If you have 
one of these plans, we are going to outlaw these plans, because they 
are unworthy of Americans.
  Well, when it actually came time for that part of the law to go into 
effect, it turns out there was a reason these plans existed: because 
folks couldn't afford more of an insurance policy than that. They 
needed these plans.
  So what the President did is he said:

       We know this isn't going to work. We know this part of the 
     law is flawed. We have to fix it.

  Congress said:

       You are absolutely right.

  House bill, Senate bill, bipartisan bills to solve the problem. The 
President acted alone, first in November of 2013, then in March of 
2014, waiving the law, saying:

       I advocated for this law. I signed this law. I made this 
     language the law of the land. But now I don't like it. Rather 
     than seeking a solution from Congress--which Congress had--I 
     am going to act alone.

  And, finally, on the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Speaker, the penalty 
waivers where you were going to be fined. If you didn't do what the law 
said you were supposed to do, you were going to be fined by the law. 
That wasn't going to work.
  The system was not in place for Americans to follow the law. The 
paperwork trail, as you know, is amazingly burdensome. Folks could not 
comply with the law.
  The White House knew it. The Congress knew it. The American people 
know it. That is why we had not one bill, not two bills, not three 
bills, but four bills, not just in the House, but in

[[Page H6172]]

the House and Senate, not just Republicans, but bipartisan bills to 
solve that problem.
  But the President didn't work with the Congress. The President didn't 
call the Speaker. The President went and acted alone, first in January 
2015, again in February 2015.
  Mr. Speaker, I am not down here to argue about the results of what 
the President did. I supported this legislation to achieve all of the 
goals that the President achieved by acting alone. But the President 
cannot write the law. The Congress must write the law.
  We, as the American people--not we, as the House of Representatives--
we, as the American people, cannot support a President amassing all of 
that authority to do whatever that President likes alone.
  Our Framers knew it. John Adams knew it. James Madison knew it. They 
worked throughout the summer of 1787 to prevent it from ever taking 
root here in America. If we fail to keep watch, it is going to be on 
our watch that those liberties slip away.
  I will go back to President George Bush. Because it makes me sad, Mr. 
Speaker, that when we try to have a conversation where we are critical 
of the White House, it sounds like we are just picking on a President 
that is not of our party. Nonsense.
  I am not saying that doesn't go on. Of course that goes on. I am just 
saying that is not where we are today. So I want to take it back to 
President Bush one more time.
  President Bush worked on immigration reform. Goodness knows we need 
immigration reform. I support immigration reform. We have a system that 
is broken.
  Folks who need to get here can't get here. Folks who shouldn't be 
here are able to get here. Anyway, it is a problem and challenge that 
America has been facing not just this year, not last year, but for 
decades.
  President Bush said this:

       Legal immigration is one of the top concerns of the 
     American people. And Congress' failure to act on it is a 
     disappointment.

  The American people understand the status quo is unacceptable when it 
comes to our immigration laws. A lot of us worked hard to see if we 
couldn't find common ground, but it didn't work.
  President Bush, wanting to achieve immigration reform, chastised 
Congress for not acting on immigration reform, championing the cause, 
asking for Congress to do more, but understanding what his limitations 
are.
  President Obama, March 2011:

       With respect to the notion that I can just suspend 
     deportations through an executive order, that is just not the 
     case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has.

  In March of 2011, when asked about deportations and what is going on 
with immigration law and why won't Congress move forward, the President 
says:

       The notion that I can just suspend deportations just isn't 
     the case because there are laws that govern deportations.

  President Obama, October 2010:

       I am President. I am not king. I can't do these things just 
     by myself. We have a system of government that requires the 
     Congress to work with the executive branch to make it happen.

  Mr. Speaker, these are the words of President Obama shortly after he 
became President. These are the sentiments of President Obama echoing 
the sentiments of then-Senator Obama when he said there is a way that 
this government is supposed to run and it takes all three branches to 
make it happen. Nobody can do it alone.
  President Obama, May 2010:

       Comprehensive reform. That is how we are going to solve 
     this problem. Anybody who tells you it is going to be easy or 
     that I can just waive a magic wand and make it happen hasn't 
     been paying attention to how this town works.

  He knows that it has to be a collaborative effort in order to change 
the law.
  July 2010, President Obama:

       There are those in the immigrants' rights community who 
     have argued passionately that we should simply provide those 
     who are here illegally with legal status or at least ignore 
     the laws on the books and put an end to deportations until we 
     have better laws.

  That is what folks were asking of President Obama:

       Can't you just ignore the laws? If you can't ignore the 
     laws, won't you just put deportations on hold?

  The President responded with this:

       I believe that such an indiscriminate approach would be 
     both unwise and unfair. It would suggest to those thinking 
     about coming here illegally that there will be no 
     repercussions for such a decision, and this could lead to a 
     surge in more illegal immigration.

  Did you see that was a little different conversation than what the 
President was talking about a little earlier?
  Statement after statement, speech after speech, conversation after 
conversation, the President said:

       No, I can't do this because it is against the law. No, I 
     can't do this because the Constitution doesn't give me these 
     powers. No, I can't do this because that is not what a 
     President in the United States of America is allowed to do.

  But then the conversation begins to change. What I just read to you, 
Mr. Speaker, was a quote about policy:
  Well, I just don't think it is a good idea to do it.
  It is not it is illegal, not it is unconstitutional to do it.

       I just don't think it is a good idea to do it.

  Mr. Speaker, fast-forward to November of last year. The President 
talked about his unilateral actions to suspend deportations, exactly as 
he said years earlier he was not allowed to do under the law.
  He says this:

       The actions I'm taking are not only lawful, they're the 
     kinds of actions taken by every single Republican President, 
     every single Democratic President of the past half-century.
       And to those Members of Congress who question my authority 
     to make our immigration system work better or question the 
     wisdom of me acting where Congress has failed, I have one 
     answer: Pass a bill.
       I want to work with both parties to pass a more permanent 
     legislative solution. And the day I sign that bill into law, 
     the actions I take today will no longer be necessary.

  That is pretty powerful, Mr. Speaker.

       I wanted Congress to do what I wanted Congress to do, but 
     they didn't. It didn't. So I'm going to do it myself. I have 
     said that I couldn't. I said it was illegal to do. But I have 
     rethought it. I now think it is perfectly legal to do, and 
     I'm going to do it. But goods news, Congress, good news, 
     American people. As soon as Congress does do what I want 
     it to do, I'm going to stop doing what I'm not allowed to 
     do.

  Where was the outcry? Not the outcry over the policy, Mr. Speaker. 
The outcry over the process. We heard the outcry from Democrats when 
President Bush was overreaching. We heard the outcry from Republicans 
as President Obama has been overreaching.
  But where is the outcry from America that says:

       You know what? There might just be some wisdom in what John 
     Adams and James Madison had to say. You know what? There 
     might just be some merit to this whole separation of powers, 
     checks and balances idea. You know what? Perhaps the ends 
     don't justify the means. Let's stick with constitutional 
     authority.

  Mr. Speaker, this is not just a congressional or an executive branch 
issue. I quote Jonathan Turley, law professor, one of the eminent 
constitutional scholars of our time.
  He says this:

       Our government requires consent and compromise to function. 
     It goes without saying that, when we are politically divided 
     as a Nation, less tends to get done.

  I don't believe that shocks you, Mr. Speaker. It certainly doesn't 
shock me.

       However, such division is no license to go it alone, as 
     President Obama has suggested. You have only two choices in 
     our system when facing political adversaries. You can either 
     seek to convince them or you can replace them.

  That is pretty powerful. As we talked about Constitution Day 
yesterday, Mr. Speaker, that is pretty powerful.
  When we disagree in this country, we have two options. We can either 
change one another's minds or we can replace the people that we put in 
authority to make those decisions.
  Jonathan Turley continues:

       This is obviously frustrating for our Presidents and their 
     supporters who want to see real change and to transcend 
     gridlock. However, there is nothing noble in circumventing 
     the Constitution. The claim of any one person that they can 
     get the job done unilaterally is the very siren's call that 
     our Framers warned us to resist.

                              {time}  1345

  The very notion that anyone can get the job done alone, Mr. Speaker, 
is the siren's call that our framers warned us to respect. Jonathan 
Turley continues:

       It is certainly true that the Framers expected much from 
     us, but no more than they demanded from themselves.

  Mr. Speaker, this was November of 2014, when the President did his 
last

[[Page H6173]]

round of unilateral immigration changes. Headline of the Washington 
Post, ``President Obama's Unilateral Action on Immigration Has No 
Precedent.'' February of this year, headline, ``Federal Judge Blocks 
Obama's Executive Actions on Immigration.''
  These aren't issues for the courts, Mr. Speaker. If Congress passes a 
law and the President signs a law and that law is unconstitutional, 
that is the issue for the courts. The issue of whether or not we want 
Presidents to be able to amass all the power so that they can get the 
job done alone is not an issue for the courts. It is an issue for every 
single one of us as citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, I went through the Affordable Care Act. I went through 
immigration. It is not like the list is short.
  Climate change, do you remember the climate change bill when 
Democrats had complete control of the U.S. House and the United States 
Senate and the White House the first 2 years of President Obama's first 
term? They worked and worked and worked and worked and worked to pass a 
climate change bill. They couldn't do it. It was rejected in a 
bipartisan way on Capitol Hill.
  Headline from the Washington Post, last month, August, 2015, ``What 
You Need to Know About Obama's Biggest Global Warming Move Yet, His 
Clean Power Plan.'' This is an editorial from Laurence Tribe, another 
constitutional law professor recognized by absolutely everyone on both 
sides of the aisle for his knowledge. I would tell you he is not a 
particularly conservative law professor. I would tell you that he 
stands with my liberal friends more often than he stands with my 
conservative friends.
  But he is not talking about liberalism. He is not talking about 
conservatism. He is not talking about public policy. He is talking 
about constitutional law, and he says this:

       As a law professor, I taught the Nation's first 
     environmental law class 45 years ago; and as a lawyer, I have 
     supported countless environmental causes. And as a father and 
     grandfather, I want to leave the Earth in better shape than 
     when I arrived.

  All of his policy goals support the environment, support those 
causes--want to leave the Earth in better shape than I found it. He 
says:

       Nonetheless, I recently filed comments with the 
     Environmental Protection Agency urging the Agency to withdraw 
     its Clean Power Plan, a regulatory proposal to reduce carbon 
     emissions from the Nation's electric power plants. In my 
     view, coping with climate change is a vital end.

  Hear that. In his view, solving the problem that the President aims 
to solve is a vital end.
  Laurence Tribe continues:

       But it does not justify using unconstitutional means.

  Mr. Speaker, I don't admire the men and women in this Chamber who 
rise to their feet to cheer the causes that they support. I admire the 
men and women in this Chamber who do the right thing, even when it is 
hard to do so.
  I admire the men and women who stand up to their party leadership 
when it is hard to do so. I admire the men and women who put their 
obligation to their constituents above their obligation to party, who 
put their obligation to the Constitution above their passions for the 
direction of public policy.
  Taught the first environmental law class 45 years ago. Coping with 
climate change is a vital end, but it does not justify using 
unconstitutional means.
  I go on, Laurence Tribe:

       Even more fundamentally, the EPA, like every administrative 
     agency, is constitutionally forbidden to exercise powers 
     Congress never delegated in the first place.

  The brute fact is that the Obama administration failed to get climate 
legislation through Congress, yet the EPA is acting as though it has 
the legislative authority to reengineer the Nation's electric 
generating system and power grid. It does not.
  Mr. Speaker, we are going to have this case litigated, and nine men 
and women in black robes across the street are going to decide this 
issue. And we know how they are going to decide this issue.
  My fear is not that we are not going to get the right decision. We 
are. This isn't our first rodeo here, Mr. Speaker. Remember the recess 
appointments from January 2012, where the President stood, and he was 
giving a speech in a high school in Ohio. He was giving a speech to 
high school students, and he went and he told the tale, Mr. Speaker, of 
how there was gridlock in Washington, D.C. He told the tale of how he 
wanted to get the people's business done and how Congress was standing 
in the way.
  Every time he spoke up and talked about how there was gridlock in 
Congress, there were boos in the crowd. Every time he spoke up and 
said, ``But don't worry, I'm going to go it alone,'' there was applause 
throughout the crowd.
  Our students who are studying constitutional principles today, our 
students who are being trained to be that next generation of leader, 
that citizen who sits on the board of directors of the United States of 
America, 330 million of us, stood and applauded when the President said 
Congress won't do it, so I will do it without them.
  He was applauded by Democrats, Mr. Speaker. He was criticized by 
Republicans. He went right ahead and did what he said he would do. He 
brought out a legal memorandum that still sits on the Justice 
Department Web site outlining why it was absolutely permissible to do 
what he was doing, even though the Constitution clearly said it was 
not.
  That case made its way through the Supreme Court, Mr. Speaker. It was 
the NLRB v. Noel Canning case, and it was decided 9-0.

  If you were a Supreme Court Justice appointed by President Reagan, 
you told President Obama that he was violating the law. If you were a 
Supreme Court Justice appointed by President Clinton, you told 
President Obama he was violating the law. It does not matter whether 
you were a Clinton, Reagan, Bush, or even Obama appointee, nominee to 
the Supreme Court. Every single one of them agreed that the President 
overstepped his bounds.
  My question, Mr. Speaker, is: You remember that spring of 2012, but 
how many American citizens do, those cheering high school students in 
Ohio, that campaign stop at a high school auditorium to say, I'm going 
to go it alone. Do they remember when nine Supreme Court Justices said: 
No, you won't; no, you won't.
  Where does it stop, Mr. Speaker?
  Congress says: No, you won't. Congress says: This is our 
responsibility. The President says: You are not getting it done my way; 
I'm going to go it alone. So it goes to the Supreme Court. The Supreme 
Court says, unanimously: No, Mr. President, you are not going to go it 
alone.
  It is only one short step between the executive branch ignoring the 
coequal branch of the government that is the legislature and the 
executive branch ignoring the coequal branch of government that is the 
Federal courts.
  That burden lies on us, Mr. Speaker. It is not a Republican burden or 
a Democratic burden. It is an American burden.
  I signed up to be on the Oversight Committee, Mr. Speaker. You know 
the Oversight Committee here on Capitol Hill. It has jurisdiction over 
absolutely everything, and its job is to make sure the executive branch 
is doing what the executive branch is supposed to do.
  I signed up to be on the Oversight Committee because I thought Mitt 
Romney was going to win the last election, and I wanted to be the guy 
who said to the next Republican President: No, Mr. President, you can't 
do that. We are Article I of the Constitution; you are Article II of 
the Constitution. There is a process here, and process matters.
  Well, Mitt Romney didn't win that election, so we are doing oversight 
over the Obama administration; and every single legitimate issue the 
Oversight Committee took up, headlines in the papers about just 
political hacks going after their political opposition. It is not true, 
and it is too important to dismiss in that way.
  James Madison, Mr. Speaker:

       The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and 
     judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one or few or many, 
     and whether hereditary, self-appointed or elective, may 
     justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

  This President has just over a year left in the White House, Mr. 
Speaker. I am not here to talk about President Obama. I am here to talk 
about our responsibility as 435 Members of the

[[Page H6174]]

House. I am here to talk about America's responsibility as 330 million 
individual members of America's board of directors.
  Does process matter or do the ends justify the means? Hold 
Republicans accountable for not standing up to President Bush. Hold 
Democrats accountable for not standing up to President Obama. Hold your 
friends and your neighbors and your coworkers accountable if you hear 
them say the ends justify the means.
  We can only imagine how dangerous these times were. We can only 
imagine the summer of 1787 as the entire future of the Republic hung in 
the balance. We can only imagine 1776 when we were declaring our 
freedom from the world's largest superpower. We can only imagine what 
it meant to sign our name on a document pledging our lives, our 
fortunes, and our families' lives to the cause.
  And as they grappled with those decisions in 1776, in 1787, they knew 
one thing with certainty: having all of the power accumulate anywhere, 
with anyone, was a threat to individual liberties and freedoms.
  The President disagrees with me on a lot of public policy, and I 
welcome him to come down here to Congress and advocate for it; and if 
you get the votes in this body and you get the votes across the way and 
you beat me on public policy, fair and square. That is the way it is 
supposed to be. But when any one of us decides that our priorities, our 
policy preferences, are so important that the Constitution takes a 
backseat, we are not long for this form of government, this greatest 
experiment the world has ever known in self-governance.
  It is easy to talk about health care, Mr. Speaker. It is easy to talk 
about environmental policy. It is easy to talk about water policy. The 
list goes on and on and on. What is hard is changing that policy, and 
it is deliberately so. It is deliberately so.
  As the Courts have taken these challenges on, Mr. Speaker, 9-0, 
reining in the President from his overreach. And in that 9-0 case, Noel 
Canning, just 2 years ago, the Supreme Court said this:

       The recess appointments clause--that was what they were 
     arguing about at the time--is not designed to overcome 
     serious institutional friction. It simply provides a 
     subsidiary method for appointing officials when the Senate is 
     away during a recess.

  Here, as in other contexts, global warming, health care, water 
policy, on and on and on, here, as in other contexts, friction between 
the branches is an inevitable consequence of our constitutional 
structure.
  Mr. Speaker, I challenge you to go home to your constituents, as 
townhall meeting after townhall meeting after townhall meeting talks 
about the gridlock in Washington, D.C. Friction between the branches is 
an inevitable consequence of our constitutional structure. We must 
celebrate that friction, Mr. Speaker.
  We have two ways to change policy in this country: You can either 
change your neighbor's mind, or you can replace your delegate to 
office. Changing minds and changing people are the only two methods we 
have in this country. It is the consequence of our constitutional 
structure.
  I do not fear gridlock. I am not concerned that we cannot find a 
pathway forward. I do fear one man, one group, one party having all of 
the control.

                              {time}  1415

  I do fear folks short-circuiting a process that our Founders put in 
place to keep us safe for generations to come.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope you will join me, as Constitution Day has just 
passed, in celebrating the wisdom in that summer of 1787 and committing 
ourselves--Republicans and Democrats alike, House Members and Senate 
Members alike--to ensuring that policy does not trump process, to 
ensure that we get to where all of America wants us to be, but that we 
get there the right way, not just because it matters, but because that 
is what the Constitution and the law requires.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________